People with psychotic disorders die earlier than expected due to physical illnesses such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer. Despite substantial evidence about managing physical health to improve quality of life and reduce morbidity and mortality, there is limited research from the perspectives of people living with psychotic disorders. Since discourses are attached to all areas of knowledge, I situated myself within the critical social paradigm to understand factors that subjugate voices of people with psychotic disorders in research, practices, and policies. I used postcolonial theory as a lens for my research to show power asymmetry that often oppresses and dominates patients based on exclusion. Postcolonial theory in general and Spivak’s theory more specifically helped draw the parallel between systems of power such as colonization and patriarchy that silence the subaltern in the context of colonization and people with mental illness in psychiatry. Committing to Spivak’s theory of subalternity for self-representation, I chose digital storytelling as a methodological approach for generating transformative knowledge that exposes forces that mediate health and illness. Digital storytelling has an epistemological commitment to self-representation and critical reflection through visual, audio, and other forms of expression that facilitate more accurate articulations of experiences.
The overarching purpose of this thesis was to explore the process of digital storytelling with people with psychotic disorders as a means of expressing their voices and to understand how nurses and healthcare leaders engage with the digital stories and foresee the use of digital stories in healthcare practices and policies. Six short videos capturing personal stories of people with psychotic disorders about their physical health needs and concerns were produced. Digital stories are audio-visual vignettes of approximately 2-5 minutes in length, presenting first-person stories in conjunction with audiovisual material (photos, images, soundtracks, etc.). The digital stories were presented in 2 focus group sessions to understand their impact on nurses and nursing leaders (n=15). Findings from this research brought forth stories that spoke of deep struggles people with psychotic disorders experience in addressing their physical health concerns within the psychiatric system. Participants talked about their embodied experiences and invisibility in the healthcare system in their digital stories. They expressed that healthcare providers had paternalistic approaches when addressing their physical health problems and revealed how they compensated for their lack of power and loss of identity. Story makers embedded their experiences with notions of powerlessness and despair and the associated negative impact on significant aspects of their lives. By reflecting on the digital stories and placing the content of stories within the larger context of the psychiatric system and current practices, nurses were able to expose power relations and structures such as quantitative approaches to care, stigma, and the biomedical model of care that excluded the experiences of people with psychotic disorders in psychiatry. Meanwhile, reflecting on the stories exposed nurses’ passive stance in challenging and resisting the dynamics that exclude patients’ voices at every level of care. In this research, Spivak’s theory helped highlight the thematic centrality of epistemic violence and the role of the digital stories in overcoming epistemic injustice and opening a line of communication with those in positions of power in psychiatry.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/43272 |
| Date | 08 February 2022 |
| Creators | Wazni, Liquaa |
| Contributors | Gifford, Wendy Annette, Perron, Amélie |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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